Posted on 07/23/2013 8:04:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The two Rasmussen polls I featured last week didn’t ask specifically whether the shooting was justified, only whether the verdict was. Rasmussen found a near-majority in agreement with the jury (48/34). ABC/WaPo: A 41/41 dead heat, with the question of whether the shooting was justified splitting 26/40 against. How could the public be divided on the verdict but much less divided on the shooting itself? Because, I assume, one question deals more with moral culpability and the other deals with legal culpability. There’s some subset of people here who probably believe (a) either Zimmerman’s at fault for getting out of his car in the first place and/or that he’s lying about how the confrontation happened but also (b) the prosecution simply didn’t prove manslaughter beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, 41 percent believe he’s not guilty but only 26 percent believe he’s truly innocent.
The white/black divide on both questions is as enormous as you’d expect. Fully 87 percent of blacks think the shooting was unjustified and 86 percent disagree with the verdict; among whites, 51 percent support the verdict and there’s an even 33/33 split between those who think the shooting was justified and those who think it wasn’t. What about Hispanics, though? Last week’s Rasmussen data suggested (but didn’t clearly state) that they were marginally inclined to support the verdict. Here’s what ABC/WaPo found when it asked if the shooting was justified:
That view, that the shooting was unjustified, prevailed across nearly every demographic — political, racial, age. The notable exceptions who think it was justified are Republicans, conservatives, and voters 65 and over, all of which overlap considerably. As for the racial split on the verdict itself, Hispanics give that thumbs down too:
There’s a sharp, notable gender gap within the general public on the trial’s outcome — men support the verdict 47/33 and women oppose it 36/48 — and a sharp age gap, with younger voters lopsided in disagreement and older voters lopsided in support. There is, as you might expect, a sharp partisan gap too, which is partly a function of the racial composition of both parties. Democrats and Republicans are virtually mirror images of each other at 22/62 and 65/20, respectively, on whether the verdict was correct. Independents, however, side with the GOP on this one, backing the verdict, 44/35. They also side with Republicans in opposing federal charges for Zimmerman. The GOP splits 17/72 in opposition while indies split 36/50. Democrats, naturally, support federal charges 57/29. Overall the public narrowly opposes federal charges, 39/46. When Rasmussen polled that question, he found only 21 percent support for a new federal prosecution.
So, why the discrepancy between this poll and Rasmussen’s? My first thought is that Rasmussen typically polls only likely voters, which tend to be more conservative than the general population. But unless I’m misreading this, his Zimmerman polls were of adults nationally, just like ABC/WaPo’s. Another possibility is that O’s comments on Friday moved the needle. He didn’t criticize the verdict, but if you’re a low-information voter who didn’t follow the trial tuning in on Friday to find the president somberly discussing racial injustice, you’d know what lesson you’re supposed to take from the outcome. Ras’s poll was conducted before Obama’s comments, but WaPo’s poll included part of the day Friday after he’d spoken plus all of Saturday and Sunday. Third possibility: A few extra days of unhappy media coverage, starting with the “Justice for Trayvon” protests this weekend, might be shaping opinion in the aftermath. Any other explanations? What’d I miss here?
Update: Pew is out with its own poll of the verdict this afternoon that lines up in many ways with ABC/WaPo’s data, especially in Hispanic disapproval of the verdict. One interesting finding comes in the second question here:
Every poll I have seen on the net showed 60-80% who agreed with the verdict. Comments on article are 10 to 1 in favor of GZ. I call BS.
a lot of people don’t think that deadly force is ever justified, or that both parties have to be armed for it to be so. There’s also a large contingent that think guns are always wrong. Throw in the never ending supply of White Guilt, and some Trayvon baby pictures, and I’m surprised it’s not worse.
If that poll truly reflects the views of Americans, all I can say is it’s good we have the rule of law and not the rule of mob.
How long we can hold onto our system, I don’t know. It’s only a matter of time before we are Zimbabwe or Kenya.
First you would have to go on the premise that this poll is factual !
What good is this “poll” supposed to accomplish? By popular demand, should the jury now be nullified, and GZ incarcerated for the rest of his life because of it? Majority rules, right?
26% think it was
The other 35% were watching Honey BooBoo fart on live TV...
And yes, it adds up to 101% but it’s just as factual as ABCNNBCBSWAPO...
Of the polling sample, it was later found that 40% let the enemedia do their thinking for them and 26% actually watched or read about key parts of the trial. What a KO-INKY-DINK!
ABC is working their butts off to stir up racial hatred and get Zimmerman murdered.
It’s impossible to manipulate poll results by framing questions in certain ways, so this must be true.
Doesn’t matter what polls might indicate. The Jury found him innocent of what he was charged. End of story.
Gutting the assailant with a large hunting knife. But that gets blood all over your clothes.
The Pro-Skittles commenters getting hammered on every website I've been on lately.
Yesterday on ABC and CBS, It was 20-1, if not more, pro Zimmerman
I second the BS on this
I have a question about your question -
how many who answered the poll know that that was happening, and it wasn’t as the baiters and the MSM were saying - “Zim followed Martin and shot him”.
If only Whites VOTED the same way, we would have President Romnney.
Why these polls offer the “don’t know’ or “no opinion” choices is a wonderment to me. If people don’t have an opinion about something they should not be given the opportunity to express it.
You’d have to look at the mentality of the people polled, the political affiliation of those polled and then you look at who’s doing the polling.
50% don’t know enough about it so if they were informed that would wipe out the stupidity/race factor.
If you took all of the evidence, presented it to an audience only as person X (TM) and person Y (GZ) in a hypothetical case with no ethnic background association, person Y and the justified outcome would be obvious.
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